The Scope and Limits of Biological Explanations in Archaeology

<p>I show how archaeologists have two problems. The construction of scenarios accounting for the raw data of Archaeology, the material remains of the past, and the explanation of pre-history. Within Archaeology, there has been an ongoing debate about how to constrain speculation within both of these archaeological projects, and archaeologists have consistently looked to biological mechanisms for constraints. I demonstrate the problems of using biology, either as an analogy for cultural processes or through direct application of biological principles to material remains. This is done through setting out the requirements of a Darwinian Archaeology, and then measuring various approaches against these requirements. This approach leads to the conclusion that archaeologist's explanations of the past must include within their formulations an account of human cognitive capacities within their explanatory framework. The limits of our understanding of the human past will be the limits of our understanding of Homo sapiens.</p>

The Scope and Limits of Biological Explanations in Archaeology

<p>I show how archaeologists have two problems. The construction of scenarios accounting for the raw data of Archaeology, the material remains of the past, and the explanation of pre-history. Within Archaeology, there has been an ongoing debate about how to constrain speculation within both of these archaeological projects, and archaeologists have consistently looked to biological mechanisms for constraints. I demonstrate the problems of using biology, either as an analogy for cultural processes or through direct application of biological principles to material remains. This is done through setting out the requirements of a Darwinian Archaeology, and then measuring various approaches against these requirements. This approach leads to the conclusion that archaeologist's explanations of the past must include within their formulations an account of human cognitive capacities within their explanatory framework. The limits of our understanding of the human past will be the limits of our understanding of Homo sapiens.</p>

Between mechanical clocks and emergent flocks: complexities in biology

Even though complexity is a concept that is ubiquitously used by biologists and philosophers of biology, it is rarely made precise. I argue that a clarification of the concept is neither trivial nor unachievable, and I propose a unifying framework based on the technical notion of “effective complexity” that allows me to do justice to conflicting intuitions about biological complexity, while taking into account several distinctions in the usage of the concept that are often overlooked. In particular, I propose a distinction between two kinds of complexity, “mechanical” and “emergent”, which can be understood as different ways of relating the effective complexity of mechanisms and of behaviors in biological explanations. I illustrate the adequacy of this framework by discussing different attempts to understand intracellular organization in terms of pathways and networks. My framework provides a different way of thinking about recent philosophical debates, for example, on the difference between mechanistic and topological explanations and about the concept of emergence. Moreover, it can contribute to a proper assessment of metascientific arguments that invoke biological complexity.

Causal explanations for weight influence children’s social preferences: Biological-essentialist explanations reduce, and behavioral explanations promote, preferences for thin friends

The current study experimentally investigated the impact of causal-explanatory information on weight bias over development. Participants (n = 395, children ages 4–11 years and adults) received either a biological or behavioral explanation for body size, or neither, in three between-subjects conditions. Participants then made preference judgments for characters with smaller versus larger body sizes. Results showed that both behavioral and biological explanations impacted children’s preferences. Relative to children’s baseline preferences, behavioral explanations enhanced preferences for smaller characters, and biological explanations reduced these preferences—unlike the typical facilitative impact of biological-essentialist explanations on other biases. The explanations did not affect adults’ preferences. In contrast to previous findings, we demonstrate that causal knowledge can impact weight bias early in development.

Re-politicizing Mental Illness: Reflections on Boredom and Depression in American Post-postmodern Fiction

Figurations of psychological problems, mental illness, boredom, depression, addiction and medication abound in post-postmodern fiction. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and The Pale King and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections are cases in point. Apparently, what these works share in common are the material and psycho-biological explanations that they hint at or provide for the various mental problems and disorders experienced by the characters. These pertain to the specific socio-economic and cultural mode characterizing the contemporary scene. Drawing on the insights provided by Franco Berardi the present article tries to shed light on the significance of such figurations. Keywords: Davis Foster Wallace; Jonathan Franzen; Franco Berardi; boredom; depression.

Metaphor and Meaning in the Teleological Language of Biology

In the early twentieth century, neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory replaced traditional teleological causality as the accepted explanatory basis for biology. Yet, despite this rejection of teleology, biologists continue to resort to the language of purpose and design in order to define function, explain physiological processes, and describe behavior. The legitimacy of such teleological language is currently debated among biologists and philosophers of science. Many biologists and educators argue that teleological language can function as a type of convenient short-hand for describing function while some argue that such language contradicts the fundamentally ateleological nature of evolutionary theory. Others, such as Ernst Mayr, have attempted to redefine teleologyin such a way as to evade any metaphysical implications. However, most discussions regarding the legitimacy of teleological language in biology fail to consider the nature of language itself. Since conceptual language is intrinsically metaphorical, teleological language can be dismissed as decorative if and only if it can be replaced with alternative metaphors without loss of essential meaning. I conclude that, since teleological concepts cannot be abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleological. It is the teleological character of life which makes it a unique phenomenon requiring a unique discipline of study distinct from physics or chemistry.

Not all Explanations are Equal: Only Explanations Invoking a Change from the true self Mitigate Responsibility

When do people believe that biological explanations, such as genes, brain damage, or abnormal hormones, mitigate punishment for crimes? We propose the way in which biology is viewed as impacting the true self of the actor—who the actor really is, deep down—is the key element for predicting biologically-based mitigation. Across four preregistered studies, 4,066 American adults learned of different biological explanations for crimes and judged punishment, fault, and blame. We show, while some biological explanations mitigate punishment and responsibility, general ascriptions to genes do not. Participants viewed external events like traumatic brain injury as a disconnect between the true self and the peripheral self, whereas they did not for genetic ascriptions. People interprete general genes-based explanations for crimes as indicating that the perpetrators true self was violent or dangerous, while other biological explanations did not impugn the actor’s true self. Only when genetic bases are described as mutations do genes become mitigating factors. In these latter cases, the actor is not judged as harshly because the violent crime could be attributed to aspects peripheral to the true self. Therefore, biological explanations differ in the extent to which they implicate the true self. These results help to clear up when biological explanations do and do not appear to mitigate responsibility for crimes: When the aspect of biology in question is viewed as part of the true self, it will not mitigate blame; but when the biological aspect is viewed as more peripheral, the blame seems to be mitigating.